Saturday, May 10, 2008

Pangea Day was awesome!

These are the hands, what are you going to build with them?
- a line in the song sung by Dave Stewart, Co-Founder, Eurythmics at the Pangea Day celebration

Pangea Day ended about 50 minutes ago. Yet the sights, sounds, and the messages linger on. Pangea Day was a powerful four hour global performance. It showed how the power of convergence on a global scale of film, art, music, dance, information and communication technologies (ICT). In other words, CREATIVITY in the different disciplines and activities of humanity can promote peace, forgiveness, social justice, remembrance, and most importantly LOVE for our fellow human being.

This was an experiment in promoting peace- through social memory, of combatants in the Middle East getting together, opening their hearts, and talking to one another, in the hopes of forgiving one another. As one victim asked, "If we who have lost the most precious in our lives can forgive, why can't others and our leaders?" (or words to that effect).

-through laughter as an Indian guru suggested and performed...

- through remembering the past and working at a better future...

-through music, singing another people's national anthem...

-through sports, by playing volleyball using a border wall as the net..

- through the lived experience of oneself or of others...

My dissertation research on Gawad Kalinga has opened my eyes (and heart) to the powerful force of love, servant leadership, caring and sharing. It also made me aware that much can be achieved through the CONVERGENCE of CREATIVITY and of CREATIVE, LOVING PEOPLE.

Look into yourself and those around you.

Become more aware of the creativity to do good in yourself and the good being done by others.

One speaker noted that "we are the same species, with the same problems, living in one planet..one day there may not anymore be the OTHER..."

One world, one heartbeat.

Check out Karen Armstrong's inspirational speech at Pangea Day.

Pangea Day is on now!


Pangea Day is on!


They've started show the films.

The current film is about refugees and war in Africa.

Check out http://www.pangeaday.org.

Anthropologist Donald Brown is now speaking about the "human universals of language", which include the spoken and written word, gestures, facial expressions, social memory, etc.

24 films, 4 hours, 180 countries simultaenously showing the films...Bringing the world through film...

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Pangea Day





Pangea Day

Pangea Day is this coming Saturday, 10 May 2008 at 18:00 GMT. The 24 films chosen out of more than 2,500 entries from over 100 countries will start broadcasting in the Philippines at 2:00 a.m. In Tucson, Arizona, the showing starts at 11:00 a.m.

Pangea is the brainchild of noted filmmaker Jehane Noujaim who won the TED Prize (annual Technology, Environment, and Design conference) in 2006. The annual TED Prize is worth $100,000 and a ‘wish’ that TED organizers assist in fulfilling. Ms. Noujaim’s ‘wish’ was for the whole world to get together through film.

Her 2006 wish is now about to become a reality.

Her vision inspired so many groups, organizations, corporations, and individuals. In over 180 countries, there will be Pangea Day gatherings and showings. What’s notable about Pangea Day?

Pangea Day and the films underscores the transformative power of:

  • Creativity- film, music, the written and spoken word
  • The beauty of Earth
  • Love, friendship, peace
  • The struggle over the evil, injustice, and violence in the world
  • The enduring notion and reality of community, from local to global to local and the power of ONE global family
  • Culture, acceptance and embracement of diversity and our own uniqueness as individuals and as a member of a community
  • Wisdom and knowledge and learning
  • Convergence of science, spirit, and art, as well as people, talent, time, and resources

Pangea comes from two Greek words: Pan meaning entire and Gaia, meaning earth. Pangea is the hypothesis that the all the continents once constituted a single supercontinent about 250 million years ago. German astronomist and meteorologist Alfred L. Wegener first proposed (1912) this continental drift theory and suggested the term Pangea.

The metaphor of an original wholeness now separated, but whose configurations complement each other is a powerful one for humanity.

Watch the film. Get inspired. Love deeply and ACT (excuse the pun)!




Wednesday, May 07, 2008

ONE, a celebration of Gawad Kalinga in San Diego, May 24, 2008

Poster and text below from:
http://www.gk777sd.com/

ONE is on! The unique Filipino celebration will introduce itself on Saturday May 24, 2008, at Kimball Park, National City.

ONE is a movement standing for solidarity among Filipinos in America, where diversity is acknowledged, appreciated and invited to find unity in common causes seeking the serve the highest interests of Filipino-Americans. Beyond that, ONE also seeks to actively facilitate the fruition of Fil-Am dreams to build a homeland of their dreams. In pursuit of this, ONE links with Gawad Kalinga, the fast-growing nation-building movement that focuses on dismantling a shameful poverty in the homeland that is a blight to all Filipinos wherever they are in this world.

ONE will be from 10 am to 6 pm at Kimball Park, home to major Filipino events in the county. It will be a full day of festivities where the best of the Filipino will be showcased and harnessed to propel a great initiative for solidarity and honor. The day begins with two grand events - a caravan of heroes helping the homeland through Gawad Kalinga which will begin from several points from LA to Las Vegas, and a fun ride organized by the Sikad ng Bayan and joined by other cycling groups. These will converge through the Filipino - American Highway in National City.

ONE then shifts to Kimball Park where different Fil-Am organizations representing all the different provinces will converge. It will be a day of fun, food, music, dance and fellowship where even children will be catered to. Kimball Park will be a landscape of colors that reflect the tropical ambiance of home.

ONE is born!

Let us be ONE People and ONE Unified Nation once and for all.